Week 12 - Social Networks and Wrap Up

The only internet technologies I was familiar with when commencing this training course were Yahoo Messenger and Facebook as I had been introduced to these by my eldest daughter. It was very interesting to view the British Library Facebook page as the layout was familiar. The Rotorua Public Library bebo site was also very informative. I had never thought of libraries actually going online in such a way as this. It is great and another way to be visible to the public especially the internet aged youth of today. It is keeping up to date with technology and using it to advantage. I would also like to acknowledge a big Thank you to my daughter Petah who leant me her photo disc of our holiday to Mystery Bay so I could add illustrations to my blog exercises.

Week 11 - Online applications and tools

I was surprised at the variety of free online application tools available. I did not no any of this existed. This could be very useful for patrons who may only want to use the tool application for a limited or one off usage as to purchase soft ware is very expensive. I wish I had known about these tools before my daughters started uni. I like the possibility of sharing documents with colleagues and being able to access these documents where ever you are. This would be very useful for students at school or uni when putting together presentations. This could also be the case for various library staff writing up presentations or putting together annual reports. For my exercise task I wrote a very short article on Australian lighthouse history. I wrote about the Macquarie Lighthouse which was the first lighthouse built at South Head in Sydney and about the Montague Island Lighthouse. This was shared with nswpln@gmail.com as requested. I also set up a Zoho account which was a more detailed and comprehensive tool and composed a short piece on my collecting of Australian children's authors. I liked the simple straight forward approach to these tools.

Week 10 - Mashups

I was really amazed at the variety of applications available with mashups. I used a Marine Parks of NSW photo of Montague Island Lighthouse for my discovery exercise with Big huge labs. I think the site Big huge labs is great especially the jigsaw puzzle application. This has much potential for using with family gifts for children. Libraries could also have this as a children's activity fundraiser. Other library applications from this site for money making ventures include library calendars, note cards, bookmarks, posters and local area maps for visitors to the area. When completing the mashup exercise I did the mashup with no problems but had difficulty saving it to my blog. It eventually worked after trying many approaches. Other mashups found were Google maps mania. I liked the Sydney sidetracks, Google maps story collage and the Aboriginal art center.